3 sports give Aquin's Zach Moyer good representation in NUIC

Sunday

FREEPORT — Zach Moyer didn’t have much of a choice. The Aquin senior could either learn to play wide receiver or he could spend most of football season on the bench.

FREEPORT — Zach Moyer didn’t have much of a choice.

The Aquin senior could either learn to play wide receiver or he could spend most of football season on the bench. So he learned to play receiver and became Nolan Brannick’s favorite target, setting school records with 59 catches for 906 yards and 14 touchdowns.

No problem. After all, making the best of a new situation has become what Moyer does best.

“I’d never played wide receiver in my entire life until this year,” Moyer said. “When I got here, we had an all-state quarterback, so I obviously wasn’t going to take his position, and we were set at running back. So Coach (Todd) Kramer said ‘receiver is the position that’s open, it’s yours if you want to play.’

“I tried it and it ended up working out well, I’d say.”

No kidding.

Moyer broke several school receiving records for the football team, then went on to start for the Bulldogs’ No. 2 state-ranked basketball team. Moyer has also thrived academically at Aquin and is now on the baseball team.

The adage of life being full of adjustments certainly rings true for Moyer in sports and in life.

Adjusting on the fly has become a way of life for Moyer, who has attended three high schools. Counting co-op teams, he has now started on a sports team for five of the NUIC’s 20 schools in four years.

“He’s had a lot of life adjustments being at different schools,” Aquin football and baseball coach Todd Kramer said. “Being able to make that change and then fitting in just shows the kind of character he has.

“A lot of kids being in that situation probably would have gotten themselves in trouble. But he’s just a good all-around kid that’s coachable, and he’s put in extra time to make himself and the team better.”

The three-sport athlete has had an impact on nearly every team he’s played on.

A Pec start
Moyer’s moves actually began in middle school He moved from Pearl City to Orangeville to Pecatonica in less than a year before his ninth-grade season at Pec.

“My freshman year was tough. I was going to a school I’d never been to before. I heard people talk about it and didn’t really know much about the sports and just went in.

“I did all right and made a lot of friends. I still talk to a lot of them today.”

Even as a freshman, Moyer had a big impact at Pec. He kicked a game-winning field goal with three seconds left in Week 8 of the football season against West Carroll. That kick gave Pec its fifth win and its then-senior class the only winning football season it ever had at any level.

“That was one of my favorite moments just being a freshman and not expecting it to go in. Coach just told me to kick it.”

That kick gave Pec its last winning season. The Indians are 4-23 in football the last three years and won’t field a varsity team next fall because of low numbers.

That spring, Moyer played on the Pecatonica/Durand baseball team that won the only regional title in either school’s history.

Back to Pearl City
After the spring season, Moyer transferred back to Pearl City.

“The next two years at Pearl City were probably my easiest. I was well-accepted and knew everything that was going on and still had contact with those kids.”

His former Pec/Du baseball coach, Jay Mullens, became the principal of Pearl City that same year, which Moyer said helped with the transition.

Moyer was Eastland/Pearl City’s kicker for football his sophomore year, and was a forward for the Wolves basketball squad and a pitcher on the baseball team for both his sophomore and junior years.

But Moyer wouldn’t attend PC his senior year, instead moving back to Pecatonica with his father and transferring to Aquin. That meant another year of starting at a new school with some new faces and hoping to gain acceptance with peers.

For the third time in four years.

“It was pretty tough,” Moyer said. “I thought I was going to catch more grief about it and people would make fun. But it wasn’t as bad as people would make it sound coming to Aquin as a new kid.”

Things weren’t always easy, though.

“I’m sure there were private moments when things were a little bit difficult for him,” said Rich Chang, Aquin’s head basketball coach and assistant baseball coach. “It would be for anybody.

“For us to pretend that on the outside everything was perfect and fine, so on the inside it was as well, that probably isn’t fair to think. But he’s a good kid and he’s got friends all over. I’m sure they will last a lifetime. He’s adjusted well wherever he’s gone.”

Aquin ties
Moyer wasn’t a complete stranger when he started at Aquin. Nolan Brannick has been friends with Moyer since fifth grade, playing with and against in different sports for years.

“Andy Hughes, Aquin’s old football coach, started up a basketball team that went to a bunch of different tournaments,” Brannick said. “Me, Zach and his son Nick from West Carroll and a bunch of the Eastland boys all played together for a bunch of summers.

“In baseball, he played for the Shannon all-stars and we were in the Freeport all-stars. We always played each other at the tournaments, then would hang out. So I’ve just always known him, and I used to go over to his house. We’ve always been friends.”

Moyer’s father, Rich, was an assistant basketball coach for the Aquin girls’ 1999-2000 state qualifying team.

Aquin kicker and golfer Josh Furlong played soccer with Moyer until age 15, and Moyer has been friends with Aquin basketball star Aiden Chang for a few years.

“He was real comfortable with all of us before,” Brannick said.

Moyer was especially comfortable this fall, with Brannick throwing him the football early and often in a season where Brannick passed for 2,573 yards and 29 touchdowns, with only four interceptions.

“That was probably the best part, having Nolan as the quarterback,” Moyer said. “Without him at quarterback, there’s no way we could have gone 8-2 this year. As many receiving records as anyone had, Nolan was the center of our offense.”

Moyer continued to adapt in basketball.

“Coming from Pearl City, where I had to shoot the ball 90 percent of the time, it was completely different,” Moyer said.

He played a more complementary role on a stacked Aquin team and said he liked that better.

“In basketball, we asked him to do things he wasn’t used to,” coach Chang said. “He athletically and mentally was able to accept that.

“In baseball it’ll be the same.”

Thankful
Going from public schools to private was also a change up for Moyer. But he never felt out of his element: “I felt more at home here at Aquin than anywhere else. It’s just one big family. I have 26 kids in my (graduating) class. I’d probably say I have 26 new moms.

“They’re always looking out for you and taking care of you.”

“He tells me every once and a while how happy he is that he came here and how he’s thankful,” Brannick said.

Moyer has a couple of months before he graduates and moves on to another school. He is choosing between South Dakota State and Monmouth.

“South Dakota State kind of reminds me of Zach,” Brannick said. “There’s actually a game-cleaning room there, and Zach is the biggest hunter I know.

“It’s far away and he can kind of start over and meet new people. That would be a good fit for him.”

Joey Baskerville: jbaskerville@journalstandard.com

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